Should Cutler's heart be questioned?

CHICAGO -- From Midway Airport, where I'll attempt to file before going insane listening to the recording of a woman's voice saying, "Caution! The moving walkway is ending" over and over and ... Personally, I feel if you're on the moving walkway and you don't look to see when it's ending, you deserve to trip and fall on your face ...

FIRST DOWN:

Bad day for Vikings fans. The Bears won the division and the Packers won the conference, beating the Bears 21-14 at Soldier Field, and will play in their fifth Super Bowl.

Bad day for Bears QB Jay Cutler, too. He defined awful in two quarters and one series before leaving with a left knee injury that instantly brought down the wrath of Twitter Land upon him. And these weren't just fans. These were current NFL players. Former players. Players like Deion Sanders, who will be going into the Hall of Fame in less than two weeks.

Among Sanders' many tweets was this: "Folks i never question a players injury but i do question a players heard."

Former Pro Bowl offensive lineman Mark Schlereth tweeted: "As a guy who had 20 knee surgeries you'd have to drag me out on a stretcher to Leave a championship game."

Many others used the "Q" word. Tweeted Jaguars running back Maurice Jones Drew: "Hey I think the urban meyer rule is in effect right now ... When the going gets tough ....... QUIT.."

But, that being said, I was among those who believed Cutler had to be on the field until he literally was unable to walk.

No one pinpointed the exact hit in which Cutler was injured. He said it came during the second-to-last series of the first half, which means it probably was on the sack by Sam Shields that stripped Cutler of the ball and allowed the Packers a takeaway.

Cutler came back for the next series, which ended with him throwing an interception with seconds left in the first half.

Cutler had the knee worked on at halftime and played the first series of the second half.

Should he have demanded to continue playing? It's something that will be debated and argued about in Chicago probably long after Cutler's career is over, especially if he never gets back to this point in the playoffs again.

The Bears' public relations staff, head coach Lovie Smith and Cutler himself didn't do anything to help Cutler's already rocky image.

Smith was unclear about whose decision it was to pull Cutler from the game. He just said there was "no decision" to make because Cutler was injured.

Apparently, the medical staff made the call, according to Cutler.

"I was going to keep playing," Cutler said. "Gave it a go in that first series [of the second half] but could't really plant and throw, so they kind of pulled me."

Cutler's wishy-washy way of speaking didn't help him. Asked if could have gone back into the game, Cutler said, "It wasa probably better that I didn't. I know my knee, my body."

Twitter World took it and ran from there.

THIRD DOWN:

Two things will help Cutler overcome this controversy. One is today's MRI. Never in the history of knee injuries has a guy needed bad news from an MRI the way Cutler does today.

The second already happened after the game when Cutler's teammates jumped to Cutler's defense and agrily attacked Cutler's Tweeting attackers with pointed criticism and plenty of expletives.

Brian Urlacher was especially ticked off at the players and former players who he thinks crossed the line and questioned another player's toughness.

Center Olin Kreutz was even more angry and foul-mouthed, saying he could see Cutler's knee buckling and swaying about in the last couple series he played. Kreutz also said something I would second: "They should just turn Twitter off." There were some salty adjectives sprinkled in as well.

FOURTH DOWN:

OK, now that we got Cutler's non-playing covered, what about the way he played before he was hurt?

Wow. Four quarterbacks played on Sunday. The only one Cutler outplayed was Todd Collins, the Bears' No. 2 and no doubt soon-to-be-released No. 2 QB/waste of a roster space.

Cutler completed six of 14 passes. His passer rating was 31.8. He couldn't move the team, didn't post a point and overthrew Devin Hester on two deep balls that could have been touchdowns.

But after that, Rodgers had one more good drive in the second quarter, which led to the Packers' only other offensive touchdown, and was pretty terrible after that. His passer rating was 55.8 and he threw two interceptions, including one that was downright Favre-like on third-and-goal from the 6-yard line with the Packers leading 14-0.

Caleb Hanie was the second-best quarterback on the field, and he threw two interceptions, one of which was returned 18 yards for a touchdown by nose tackle B.J. Raji and one that ended the Bears' chances with seconds left in the game.

Hanie, who had 14 NFL pass attempts before Sunday, moved the Bears to their only points. Personally, I never felt the Packers lost control of the game, even though Chicago moved within a touchdown twice. And before anyone gets too excited about Caleb, he did get picked off by a 350-pound nose tackle.

All in all, even though it was a terrible game, the Packers and Bears showed the Vikings that they have a lot of catching up to do.

The Packers lost 91 games by starters to injury during the regular season. They had 15 players on on IR. And yet they made the playoffs as the No. 6 seed. They had to play the No. 3 Eagles and No. 1 Falcons on the road to reach the conference title game. They did it. Then they beat the No. 2 Bears on the road while not playing even close to their best game offensively.